Incredible India: The Streets of New Delhi

Out in a rout

Now, I know I have lived in Europe so long and have become inured to life in other places that appear palpable but quite abstracted on National Geographic or other documentaries showcasing distant and non-Western lands.

So, finally, I thought I will venture out to get a few things, drinks most especially because even in the Netherlands I hardly ever drink tap water and probably some snacks.

Once again, I failed to be inconspicuous, I had a hat on, that was obvious enough, then a jacket, a day cravat and the apparent immobility of air travel left me seeking the security of my cane for support.

Help provided

The concierge had the good heart of having someone take me to the supermarket and show me where the nearest metro was and so we went for a walk.

My hotel or inn as it is called is on a quiet street, it even has a green quadrangle that I saw people picnicking on from my 1^st floor window, on reflection, it probably was as idyllic as you will find a place in New Delhi.

We stepped out and turned a corner and the aromas and odours of New Delhi first hit me and then the people. Many people; looking with interest and some even shouting out greetings that I acknowledged gently without being too forward.

Babel of India

By the time we got to the main street, I suddenly realised people do not use the pavements but walk in the streets, horns blaring to a cacophony I once remembered was redolent of Lagos, decades ago.

Then this boy who apparently shines shoes latched unto me speaking one of the 10 or so Babels of India without pause for breath with sign language to boot; cupped fingers to mouth as he appeared to plead for my custom. No amount of shooing off by myself or my chaperone seemed to work until he realise I just would not budge and then he left.

I thought I will walk around a Wall Mart type supermarket considering the India government recently passed an order allowed for a chunky ownership of department stores – it was what you might call a kiosk than a corner-shop since you could not step in. You had to know what you wanted or be giraffe-necked to look around – I doubt I got much of what I wanted, c’est la vie.

A strained neck

After shopping, we walked further down towards the metro, I, heart in mouth thinking I was going to be run over, my chaperone literally oblivious of the precarious state I thought I was in. The rickshaws and car hustling and bustling, people walking in front of moving cars as if they were not there – it was a pace of life I had not seen in a long time.

As if to bring me back to earth, I could see signs of encroaching Western capitalism, the shopping streets had various hoardings on the electric poles but the one that stuck out the most was, “If you cannot keep our jobs, don’t take them away.” Others referred to the boarding up of shops and actions that usually affect small businesses.

Massaging a bargain

Then, I had to be alert to the fact that you might be offered all sorts of stuff on the street, all looking like a deal that you honestly do not need even if it is cheap. Yes, I was offered a 64GB USB stick for a European pittance and though it looked like a deal, the honest truth is, I did not need it.

It took a while for me to make myself clear and as we turned off into a quiet street my chaperone went through the exhaustive pains of showing me a massage parlour. Somehow, tourists that have visited before me must have given the impression that we are all sex-starved, sex-crazed and sex-addicted looking for a quick rub down. I really had to shake my head vigorously.

Soon we were back at the inn and what is normal to them had me looking all melodramatic – now thinking of that main road, though India drives on the left, I could for the life of me decide what side they were driving on – chaos simply defines the order of things on the road.

AKO is hardly the best at rush hour

Shopping time for the commuter

In the commuter world, the station is a place where everyone should appreciate the context of time and the instant gratification required by customers to get in, grab something, catch the train and relax in a seat fiddling with whatever was acquired.

I have however come to the conclusion that many shops in Amsterdam Central Station have no idea of the setting in which they are based.

The shops may very well know they have a market but they do not understand their customers, the characteristics of shops in the high street are quite different from those in a train station and very different from those in an airport.

The psyche of a shop

In the high street, you have time to browse and flit around in perpetual indecision till you end up with something really expensive that you never really needed.

When you shop at the airports, the purchases could be impulsive or based on the need to acquire gifts for those back at home – you may not have as much time, but you would hardly be in a panicky rush to get on your plane, except where you do not arrive on time to check-in, in which case you would hardly be shopping.

Corner shops or late night shops are a different genre; they are open until just that time when ghosts have finished putting on their makeup; they are that last refuge to interact with retailers because you have missed the regular shops and just need a quick TV dinner or something that prepares you for the next body engine trouble.

Rush-hour in tardy shops

When in comes to station shops, it requires a completely different mindset and business model – those shops are in premium rent areas, the customers hardly have the time and they definitely want prompt and efficient service, at least, that is my opinion.

For three days now as I have half-rushed to catch my train to work in the rush-hour at because of the newsagents in the station, the experience has left me quite seriously annoyed.

First off all, these newsagents has three shops in the station and somehow have failed to get it right for all sorts of reasons.

A Knock Off

For the want of controversy, AKO [Source: AKO.nl - Online boeken bestellen – In Dutch, the online site of the store] which prides itself as the best bookshop in the Netherlands seems to be failing in its prime purpose at Amsterdam Central Station.

It is almost unimaginable that at 8:00AM in the thick of the rush hour the all the newspapers are yet to be stacked up, at the most accessible store at the East side of the station, half the papers are still on the trolley in cellophane wrapping and chance has it that the one I want is in the pile.

One can go to the West side but the queues are just interminably long, with much more variety, the choices are their to keep you there for longer than it healthy for your heart; further down near Platform 14, the papers are staked up but the price scanner cannot read the barcode, forget the queues, they are long too.

Poor staff management

It is absolute chaos at times, as you find staff that should be at the tills doing other things around the shop and the queues stretch out into the concourse – I would presume the customers have another hour before their train.

In my case, I only have minutes and by the time one has walked to perimeter of the station for what should have been available 10 metres from the entrance of the station, one is almost running for the train – it is utterly beyond the pale.

The other day, they put a greenhorn on the till, he spent minutes charging the wrong price and giving out excess change along with his obvious state of discomfiture, I heard enough of the Dutch in the customer’s frustration when he cursed about how they could have put an inexperienced lad on the tills in the rush-hour.

I do wonder if these stores realise that people who pick up a newspaper really have no time for food parcel queues – in fact, I have seen setups in London where on trust people are able to use a paper dispenser, saving time for them to catch their trains with dignity.

Today, it was the Platform 14 store, a queue 10 deep and just one till available whilst the other staff were stacking shelves with non-essentials, I just could not wait 10 or more minutes to pay for the paper so I put it back.

They can sort this thing out

I am incensed that I ended up having to travel an hour without my paper just because there are three shops in the station that cannot seem to be managed properly with a clear knowledge of their setting.

These shops probably have to open earlier to stack up their shelves in time, they definitely need to have staff manning all the available tills in the rush-hours, the greenhorns should only do the quiet hours, in the meantime they can be stacking shelves if necessary and the prices of all major international newspapers should appear on a price board, just in case the scanner cannot decipher the barcode.

Thankfully, I am not the regional manager of that group of stores, else a good few heads included mine might have rolled for what is just gross incompetence and the lack of attention to the possibility that customer impatience could have lost them a good deal of business.